weekend blues & my early quilts

What is it about Saturdays? I spent my entire morning and half the afternoon getting jpgs together and onto a CD so I could send them out Express Mail to arrive in time for the Monday deadline.

I went to USPS.com to print out my label but the trusty U.S. Post Office informed me that it was having trouble with its on-line label printing. Oh, great. The benefit of printing your label on line is that it saves you standing in an endless line at the post office. "try again later" it said, so I tried later. By that time, it would print the label but it told me that my overnight mail wouldn't be delivered till Tuesday -- too late to meet the deadline. Last time I heard the term "overnight" it meant delivery the next day. What does the pOST OFFICE not understand about "overnight"??? I threw up my hands in disgust and went to visit my mother at the assisted living place - but at the last min., grabbed the mail and stopped at the local P.O. en route. Before I stood in line, I asked the woman behind the counter when it would be delivered and she told me it was guaranteed by Monday at 3:PM. So I got in line. What's the deal here? The Internet tells me Tuesday, the P.O. computer tells me Monday. I figured it was worth the gamble. We'll see.

Meantime, motivated by Del Thomas and other people who are putting various works on their blogs, I figured I'd get on the bandwagon and post a piece or two for comment. This is a breakaway piece I did - god knows when - maybe 1999 or 1998. I am going to leave it without my own comments and see what you have to say, if anything.

Défense de Fumer

I'll follow up after you've made your own comments. Does it look like my work?? If not, why not? If yes, what about it is recognizable as mine?

scarves sold, cakes eaten

and I'm working on the last of the to-die-for mulligatawny soup. It's 10:30 pm, cold, and raining. Effie's back in her feedsack dress because of the weather and although the scarves she is wearing don't match her dress, it's the only one she has, so please forgive the fashion gaffe. E-mail me if you want to give either one as a great gift for the holiday - only $60 - check or paypal. Shibori on the left is crepe de chine; batik on the right is chiffon. Click to get a closer look at each of them.

It's been one of those days. I stayed in, hoping to get some work done. Instead,

• The power cord on my laptop stopped working (frayed - made in China piece of crap - this is the second one in 4 years). I have now borrowed my husband's and hope my new one comes tomorrow. It will also be a piece of crap but at least it is inexpensive, unlike the last one.

• Our ice maker sprung a leak and water poured out from underneath the island onto our brand new oak floor. I emptied some of the ice into plastic bags and a few bags are in the freezer, the rest into a bucket & down the drain. I unplugged the ice maker, turned off all the cold water under the sink, and it still took 5 hours worth of mopping up with towels before it stopped. Of course, nobody can get here to fix it till Monday. We are having company Sat. night - guess we'll be going out for drinks and dinner.

• I cut my finger cleaning out the pail for the ice. D.H walked past a clean bucket on the way to the garage to get the filthy one from the recycling. I cut my finger cleaning the gunk out of it - probably a piece of microscopic glass. Still throbbing.

• I packed my quilt to send to Form not Function, printed the label, requested a Fedex pick-up on line, & put my tube outside the front door. FedEx never came. They have now promised to be here early tomorrow morning. Next time, I will phone for a pickup.

I won't even discuss some of the other disasters of the day, one of which involves a client of my husband's firm. On the positive side:

• the skylights are not leaking
• we have hot water in the kitchen and cold water in the bathroom sink
• it is not snowing
• My friend Susan sent me a fabulous recipe for cookie bars which I will bake next week.
• My friend Susanna is coming to play in my studio tomorrow. I will take pictures.

That's about it for the good stuff - LOL. I have to go to sleep and be in the studio EARLY.

It's Tuesday

I've been working with the shibori'd fabric I made a couple of weeks ago, trying to integrate it with other fabrics and still have it look like my own work. Not easy. Because often the patterning is strong and geometric in a shibori'd fabric, it can take over and become a distraction or unwanted focal point. Or, if you use several of them together it can become a case of not knowing where to look first. See what I mean? So tonight, I took the pieces down, eliminated a couple, substituted others, changed the sizes and shapes of the pieces and took pictures of about 10 different versions. I may not end up with any of them. With shibori, you are dealing not only with composition and content but pattern-within-pattern. I find this is the case with other hand-printed fabrics, too -- sometimes it is hard to figure out how to use them so they work with others we've printed, or with commercial fabrics. This doesn't work either...I'm still moving fabrics around. Somehow, using hand-prints is more of a challenge than using all commercial fabrics, which we can pick out in the store to and buy specifically to work with each other or to work with something we know we already have. Not as easy when you're printing randomly. On the other hand, there is such a thing as printing with intent. Have you ever been in the middle of making something and you just need one or two more fabrics to complete the piece? I have, many times. So I stop and print something I think will be the missing link. Sometimes it is, sometimes, not, and I have to try again. Do you have the same problem? This is the first piece I can remember having made in which I stopped what I was doing to print fabric so I could finish the quilt. My quilt, Journey, started in 2000 in an open studio at QBL. I combined a couple of hand-dyes, Lonni Rossi's original screened fabrics (she didn't have a commercial line then), Indian batiks from Handloom Batik, and images from family photos and documents. But something was missing. If you click on the quilt and go to the lower left, you'll get a close-up of the simple fabric I stamped and made marks on that ended up being just what it needed. It was printed with intent and was the beginning, for me, of creating my own cloth. I would love to hear your stories and see some images of what you've printed with intent - to fill in the blanks or go with something you already had. Or, let's talk about the challenges of making fabrics work together - what is your experience?

scarves and cakes

Before I get to the baking part I wanted to show you a couple of scarves I had printed recently -- just to keep this blog art-related. But almost every picture I took came out poorly; the batter on my good camera just ran out of juice - AGAIN and I have to recharge it. And the little camera just wouldn't focus. Bah. Oops - too late! Both of these scarves have been SOLD. 12/9 Effie, the model, stands in my livingroom and is fully clothed most of the time because it can be chilly in here. She is a 1951 size 16, which is probably a size 12 in today's numbers. Argh. She would like a partner, but I found her in somebody's basement in an estate sale a dozen years ago for a pittance and I am not about to pay a king's ransom for another one (which is what they cost these days if you can even find them) -- just so she can have somebody to keep her company. Tomorrow, Studio Six, my fiber group, is meeting here and as hostess, I needed to bake. I baked two of my easiest, no-fuss things today - both of which would fit into the category of baked goods we were discussing yesterday. Easy, economical, low-fat. One has no eggs, one has no shortening and both are yummy. I give you the recipes. I got this one off the back of a bag of Diamond walnuts about 1000 years ago. Chewy Walnut Squares 1 egg, unbeaten 1 cup brown sugar (I used 1/2 cup, which for me is plenty) 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 c. sifted flour (I don't sift and I use whole wheat flour) 1/4 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 1 cup chopped walnuts (I added raisins today) Stir together egg, sugar, vanilla. Quickly stir in flour, baking soda, salt. Add walnuts. Spread in a greased 8" square pan. 350 for 18-20 min. (cookies should be soft in center when taken from oven. Cool in pan, cut into 2" squares. Makes 16 squares. I have no idea where I got this one, but it is a treasure. Fast, easy: no eggs, no fat, no dairy. And it is delicious. One of my son Jeremy's favorites. 6 Minute Chocolate Cake Mix in pan (see at left - you don't even need a bowl) 1 cup sugar 1-1/2 c. flour 1/3 c cocoa 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp vanilla 1 cup water (I used some leftover cold coffee today) 1/2 cup oil Stir with fork till blended. Add 2 Tablespoons vinegar, stir quickly to blend and immediately place in 375 oven. Bake 25 min or till center is slightly puffed and cake starts to pull away from sides of pan. This is how it looks when it comes out of the oven. Today I was lazy and added chocolate chips to the cake, but sometimes I frost it with this: Melt 1/2 cup choc chips & 2 T water or liquor in microwave. Remove, put bowl over cold water and beat in 3 T butter till thick. One more story and then I'm off to bed. Marty had to go to CVS tonight to buy a birthday card. I asked him to see if they had a can of tomato soup (all I have is golden mushroom and I didn't think that would work for tomato soup cake). He came home grinning: not only did CVS have Campbell's tomato soup, they were having a buy one-get-one-free sale. I will put this bargain to use, but not tonight. And BTW - Campbell's says to bake the cake at 350 for 35-40 min.

Depression cooking & other stuff

Uh - not THAT kind of depression. The kind we're having that they call a "recession." I don't know about you, but it has brought out my culinary creativity; reminds me of when I was married to my first husband and I made a lot of tuna casseroles with canned mushroom soup. He loved it - I hated it. Have never made it since.

But lucky me, I own a first edition of MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf. She was arguably the best food writer ever and this is an absolutely delightful book on the subject. She wrote it during the WAR, when butter, sugar, eggs, coffee, meat, and who-knows-what else were rationed. Originally published in 1942 - hardcover, $2.50. I found it at a used book store in the early 1960's and it is a fabulous read!

Of course, I have never been motivated to make Rabbit in Casserole, Roast Pigeon, Kidneys in Sherry, or Calves Brains. But her basic minestrone recipe looks divine and she has a couple of cake recipes I have made that are really good and don't require eggs. War Cake is a winner (but I wouldn't advise using bacon fat as your shortening). Tomato Soup Cake is my favorite and 25 years later, I sent for a Campbell's Soup cookbook that had almost the identical recipe in it. Try it - it is really good - esp. with a bit of icing made with cream cheese or butter, powdered sugar and a little rum. Of course, MFK Fisher's recipe is a little lacking in details, such as how long you bake it - but those were the days when people KNEW how to cook and bake and could figure it out. It makes a really good cake. If I had a can of tomato soup in the house, I'd make it right now. TOMATO SOUP CAKE 3 Tablespoons butter or shortening 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 can tomato soup 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg, ginger, cloves - mixed 1-1/2 cups raisins, nuts, chopped figs or other dried fruit, what you will. Cream butter, add sugar, blend thoroughly. Add baking soda to soup, stirring well & add ths alternately to first mixture with flour & spices sifted together. Stir well & bake in a pan or loaf tin at 325. Notice that the Campbell's version looks more glamourous. Trust me, it's just as good in a loaf pan. I worked most of the afternoon stitching on the invitational piece I am donating to Virginia Spiegel's Fiber Art for a Cause Reverse Auction 2009. Then, I finally went for my long-overdue pedicure. A luxury but also a necessity, since I go around in sandals all year and other people have to look at my feet . Despite this downturn, I feel the need to take care of myself in ways I have never really done. And I am not feeling the least bit guilty about it. Too little, too late...but that is another story. I will spare you a picture of my toes, lovely as they are. Yesterday I spent some time at the studio and while I was ironing, I was throwing fabric at the wall. Here's how it looked at some point in the afternoon. I love auditioning the pieces I'm ironing -- most of which never turn into anything, but evoke possibilities. That's what life is all about: possibilities. And here is a fragment of what's on my wall at home. I had forgotten I even had this fabric, printed several years ago and buried in the pile. Don't you just love when that happens? It's like finding money in the pocket of jeans you hadn't worn in ages.

cocoa

Karoda commented that ever since my post on cocoa, she's been having some every day. I, of course, ran out of milk right after that cocoa post and was too lazy all week to stop just for milk. But then I was down to two eggs and I have to bake for Monday's crit group -- so Whole Foods on the way home. I picked up a few items, including my organic lactose-free 1% milk, and as I was leaving the dairy case, the chocolate display blocked my way to the check-out. There was nothing to do but stop and look. But wait!! What did they have but Valharona cocoa imported from France! It was fated. Here it is, side by side with the Hershey's cocoa in my pantry. They not only look different, the Valharona actually smells like chocolate. At $8.99 a pound, it should.So I had my cocoa tonight - and I feel so warm and comfy that I just know I'll sleep like a baby.

a random day

Today was one of those days where almost everything that happened was unplanned. After an early appointment, I was going to get a pedicure. But first, the car wash because I couldn't see out of my windows. So even though they were predicting rain (accurately, of course) I simply couldn't put it off any longer. The car wash was conveniently next door to Home Depot, so since I was there, in I went. Bought end caps for two of my shibori pipes. And twine. And a bunch of these gizmos, whatever they are. Washers? Widgets? Having grown up in a hardware store, you'd think I would know the names of everything. But it doesn't matter. Nothing had prices or codes, so the cashier had to take out a laminated sheet with pictures on it and place each gizmo on a picture to see which one it fit so she could tell the size. Then she had to look it up in the computer to see the price of each one. Since I had several dozen assorted sizes, you can imagine how happy the people behind me in line were. Filled the tank - 12 gal. and it only came to just under $20. Keep in mind this is New Jersey and the guy does it for you. On the upside, you don't have to get out of your car in the heat/cold/snow/rain. On the downside, you have to sit and wait till he deals with the other 4 cars that were there filling their tanks ahead of you. $1.71/gal for credit, $1.63 for cash, Shell Oil. It would have been less if I had paid cash, but I had spent it all on gizmos for shibori. Nevertheless, I paid $47 to fill up the same tank a couple of months ago. This is too good to last. I went to see my mother and ended up taking her out to lunch and buying new batteries for her TV zapper so she could get more than one channel. I also stopped at Jerry's and bought printmaking paper for tomorrow and Monday. Tomorrow, I am going over to Susanna Baker's to see her work: she draws, does encaustic, and has a press. Hence, the paper. I am about done ironing for tonight. Tell me why I am doing this - it is a bottomless pit. There is plenty here that belongs in the trash, and I am finding scraps of cloth I printed a decade ago. Dear, dear. It took me several minutes to figure out what I had done to this piece of commercial fabric. Then, the light went on. I will take it with me in April when I go to Golden, CO (April 19) to give a one day workshop at the headquarters of Quilters Newsletter. Maybe I'll give it another layer when I'm there. As I turn out the lights in my sewing room, I realize that I never did get that pedicure today.

Katherine Sands has nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award. Of course, Kathy, since you stated that you are nominating people who don't get nominated for very many things, I thank you the much-needed boost. The rules of the award are:

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog. (done)

2. Put a link to the person you got the award from in your blog(done)

3. Nominate 5 blogs. (only five?? waaah - this is tough)

4. Put links to the blogs. (below)

5. Leave a message for your nominees. (will do) In no particular order, I nominate: Del Thomas because I love her gorgeous photos, her travelogues, and a chance to see the artwork in her collection. Jeanne Raffer Beck because I connect with her work and enjoy reading her thoughtful ruminations about the challenges and breakthroughs as she creates. Carol Larson because I find her to be a breath of fresh air. She is quirky, funny, has an edge, and does not mince words. I think she is a hoot and her posts are always interesting. Russ Little because he needs a kick in the butt so he'll post more often. I love reading his posts and looking at his art cloth in process, but cheesh, it's too long a wait between posts! So get with it, Russ! Your life is too interesting not to share it with us. Helen Conway because she's so interesting. Her posts are fun to read and her photos are super! As a bonus, be sure to click on her link to Twelve by Twelve which is just too good - and has links to many other blogs I love to read. Phew! I've earned a cup of coffee or two. Marty is on his way home and I have to drive him to an appointment because by the time he comes home it will be dark and he is not driving at night. I will check back with you later.

first things first

Since you are all clamoring for this recipe, I'll get it out of the way first. When I opened the foil on the pan tonight, 4 of the squares had gone missing. So I figured I would try one. Now another 4 are gone. Oh, dear. And I said they were too sweet. By tonight, the sweetness had mellowed and they were much better. I think the trick is letting them sit for a day. The recipe is below. However, I cut the sugar to 3/4 cup: 1/2 in the meringue and 1/4 in the cookie dough that is the first layer. YMMV. I used dark brown sugar, but I'm sure you can use light brown - or even white sugar if you don't have either of the above. They are very easy. Grammy's recipe for the Meringue Bars is--- 1 1/4 cup flour 1 tsp baking powder 2 eggs, separated 1 to 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar, divided 1/2 cup chopped nuts 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup butter softened Mix flour and baking powder and set aside. In small bowl beat egg whites until frothy. Gradually beat in 1 cup sugar until stiff. Fold in nuts and vanilla and set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, egg yolks and remaining 1/2 cup sugar until fluffy. Stir in flour mixture until well blended. Spread into 9"x9" pan. Spread meringue mixture on top. Bake at 325 for 35 minutes until top is light brown. Cool in pan. Cut when cold. I did not leave the house today. In fact, I barely left my sewing room. Was I sewing? Nope, I was neatening and throwing, with a little ironing thrown in. It was/still is a logistical problem. I need to put a facing on a quilt. I can't do that till I trim the batting. I can't do that till I can use the cutting board. I can't use it till I have room to put it on the cutting table, which is piled up with the fabric I started ironing yesterday.(Does this sound a little like The House that Jack Built?) Of course, I couldn't put the fabric on my shelves because they were cluttered with other things. And I couldn't get near the sewing machine because there was so much STUFF in the way on that side of the room. So I started cleaning off the shelves on one side of the room and reorganizing/throwing the STUFF on the other side of the room. You get the picture. The ends of the room are neat because everything piled in the middle. I just need to get it organized before Monday. Earlier tonight I decided I needed a change of pace. So I started pole wrapping a couple of yards of linen I had dyed that came out ugly. It is an endless process. Here's what it looks like so far, with about 1/4 of it wrapped. When I got tired of doing that, I took a piece of random fabric from the table and decided I should clamp it and throw it in some dye. I finally found a use for those expired Garden State Parkway tokens. Odd how the resist areas didn't come out round, but have little round spots. If you click on the picture, you'll see them on the upper left.That's it for tonight. I have a piece on my wall and if I can only finish clearing off the cutting table tomorrow, I might finish the one that is first in line.

a bit of housekeeping

Day two of ironing and sorting at the studio. Making some progress in putting into piles by color - sort of - and sometimes by personality. I've moved my dyes into the drawers of a rolling cart and am putting my neat piles of fabric onto one of the shelves. Maybe then I'll know what I have. I have the "if I don't see it, I don't own it" syndrome -- which I suspect you may be familiar with. But boy, this is some undertaking! And I am trying to do the same thing at home. Imagine, if you will, untold numbers of rolling bins and plastic storage boxes with contents that look like this. Then, picture removing the contents, pressing, evaluating, and sorting into piles like the ones above or putting smaller pieces back into the plastic boxes so they look like this. I don't find it boring at all - and as you know, I love to iron. But it is rather time-consuming. So while I was at the studio today, i did some multi-tasking. I overdyed some fabrics and screen printed others with some old thickened dyes, just to use them up. I had no idea what color they were going to turn out, but it did not matter. On one of the other lists I posted about how I hang and dry my fabrics because I have no room to leave them lying around and microwaving is not an option for me. Here is my high tech setup: fabric pinned to pink insulation board covered with plastic. That column thing is a fan which I bought before we had a/c in the studio. It's pretty strong and fabrics dry in short order. And my fancy steamer: hotplate bought for $5 at yard sale, a $12 pot from K-Mart, and inside, a lotus steamer (thank you, Helene) topped by a round cake rack. 20 minutes. I'm always in the bathroom at the utility sink, rinsing out fabric. But since we have no washer and dryer there (and no way to have them) I take my fabrics home to wash, dry, iron, and fold. Tonight, while the stuff was in the wash, I baked. My daughter-in-law Nancy gave me her Grammy's recipe for meringue bars and I made them because the other resident in this household complained there was nothing sweet to eat. Nancy had baked and brought them over here on Sunday. There were delicious. However, although I cut the sugar in half, mine were sweeter than hers - too sweet for me. Can't figure it out. I'll leave them for Marty - he will love them.

cocoa

It's been years since I have drunk a cup of hot cocoa. When I was a teenager and came home from a date, many nights I would sit down with a cup of cocoa & cinnamon toast to chat with my mother about the evening. To this day, the combination spells comfort. Monday night: printmaking class. I left early because I felt a headache coming on, was tired, and hoped to ward off the evil spirits that seem to have given everybody else coughs, fevers, and general malaise. When I got home, I had a sudden urge for cocoa - something I have not had in eons. Eight years ago I became lactose intolerant and stopped drinking milk because I thought Lactaid tasted horrible. Last week, I bought an organic brand of lactose free milk and tonight, for the first time in decades, I made a cup of hot chocolate: a heaping teaspoon of cocoa powder, a dash of vanilla, a scant teaspoon of sugar, and milk. I feel so much better now. What's your ward-off-the-evil spirits/childhood comfort food? What are your memories connected with it? And does it still provide the warm fuzzies it used to? Do tell.